Shadows And Fog

As is witnessed by Zelig (1983) and Radio Days (1987), Woody Allen is a dab hand with retro stylistics and here he draws on German expressionist cinema, notably Fritz Lang’s M (1931), in a story that concerns a serial strangler in some small German provincial town pursued by a mob of over-wrought vigilantes.  Max Kleinman (Allen), a nebbish bookkeeper, gets woken by the mob who want him join them but by the time he gets ready they have disappeared and he goes in search of them, eventually meeting Irmy (Mia Farrow), a sword-swallower running away from a Bergmanesque travelling circus.

Filmed on a 26,000 square foot sound stage, the biggest ever built in New York to the time, and photographed in rich black and white by Carlo Di Palma, Shadows and Fog is a visually seductive film but Allen’s intermittently amusing script is too thin, with most of the celebrity cast including John Malkovich, Jodie Foster, Lily Tomlin, Kathy Bates, John Cusack, Donald Pleasence, Wallace Shawn, Julie Kavner, and Madonna having little to do as Kleinman wanders the fog-shrouded streets furiously wringing his hands and regretting that he ever left the comfort of his bed while Kurt Weil music, replacing Allen’s usual American jazz soundtrack, plays in the background. The result comes across as an intended parody although not a particularly good one at that.

 

Want something different?